


Chaos & Order

by Awkward_fairy



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: And for everything, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, I Don't Even Know, I Tried, Please protect this two, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), SVE2018, Scarlet Vision Exchange 2018, Vision is a confused cinnamon roll, Wanda have went through so much shit, What a cliche title tho, how do i even tag, sorry for that, they deserve to be happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-10 14:10:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15950972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awkward_fairy/pseuds/Awkward_fairy
Summary: And so at last she understood something that had always been true but that she had managed to ignore until then: She was chaos, she had always been that and it would always be that way.





	Chaos & Order

The first time she saw inside the head of the android who would become known as The Vision, everything she saw was destruction.

Chaos.

She remembers the crude horror she felt at the moment, how the desperation and panic were crawling deeply into her body as her brother carried her in his arms to safety. She clearly remembers how it felt to know that everything that had ever been was about to end because of her mistakes, and she knows she would never forget that feeling as long as she lives. So it just makes sense how confused and surprised she felt when she looked a second time only to find the most pacific mind she ever explored.

Some time after, once she had replayed that moment in her mind at least a docen times, she would conclude that she also felt something else: wonder.

For Wanda Maximoff, in all of her life, had not once had the level of order and ease she felt that night when looking into the android’s mind.

She and Pietro had been children of the war, kids that could only imagine what their home once was and hope that, some day, they could live for themselves those peaceful days that their parents used to talk about when they were believed to be asleep. Since ever, the twins were exposed to death and hunger, and not all the love in the world could have protected them completly from that. But their parents, oh, their parents did a marvelous work and no one could ever say that they didn’t tried. They fought with all they had so that their children were able to grow up in a peaceful environment, even if it was all a lie.

She was always smart, so a lot of times she was able to catch the facade that their parents tried to show when they were with them and the disaster lying behind. Even so, those days living under the warm protection offered by her parents had been the closest she ever had been to such a thing as a peaceful life and most probably the closest she would ever get. For her peaceful days and the chance to get them back had been long gone, burned alongside her parents when that bomb destroyed their home. That night, the order she had managed to achieve by reducing her world to her family had been almost completly destroyed, and what was left became toxic, poisoned by the hate and impotence that consumed her life ever since that fatidic night when she came face to face with death. That night in which Tony Stark took everything she and Pietro had.

And Wanda knew that poisoned order was no more than chaos disguised as calm, waiting for a perfect moment to unleash a storm.

So when she felt the peace within that being’s mind, the tranquility that something borned from the most intense chaos had managed to achieve, she could only stare in awe at what had just been created. Vision they called him, and while the others didn't seemed to really think about the reason behind that name, she did, and she quickly came to an answer: He was, indeed, a vision, one of hope, one of what humanity could be.

 

* * *

  

When she felt Pietro being torned apart from her, she finally hit rock bottom.

For her, he was always more than just a brother: he had been her anchor, the one thing keeping her from loosing her mind when their parents died and most probably what had kept her alive during the experiments that gave them their powers. They were two halfs of one same soul, together since birth and never meant to live without the other. If her scarlet was fury and destruction, his silverly blue was laughter and light.

With his jokes and his carefree nature, Pietro always kept her away from the bottomless void that constantly haunted her just as she kept him from doing something excessively stupid.

Anyone who watched them interact for at least five minutes could easily conclude that, between the two, she was the one with a more orderly life. Sometimes she felt that even Pietro himself believed that. But she knew the truth, and the truth was that the one who had managed to have at least some control over his life was him, for his world was Wanda and only Wanda, and if he was able to follow her wherever she might go and protect her, his world was in order and nothing could be too bad. It was a simple and egoistic way of living, but Pietro was never one to care about such things.

He would have followed her everywhere, thus she always had the chance to say “stop”. Instead, she decided to stept on the gas. Wanda was the one who kept their rage alive when they survived while their parents didn’t, she was the one who said yes when HYDRA reached for them and she was the one who accepted Ultron when he apparead full of promises of vengance. She was the one who lead him to his death. That knowledge, along with the agonizing feeling of loosing her other half, was what ended up destroying her completly.

That fake order that she had managed to keep inside her mind finally gave way to the storm that had been sleeping inside of her.

She was falling into the void and had no wish of being saved. Without her brother, her only family, she took that fall with joy and while she walked trough the debris of what once was her home, leaving a trace destroyed robots and scarlet behind her, Wanda Maximoff let herself being consumed by the hate that for so long had being poisoning her heart. And it felt good.

For once, she was feeling relief, as if she was always meant to cause that kind of destruction. And so at last she understood something that had always been true but that she had managed to ignore until then: She was chaos, she had always been that and it would always be that way.

With Ultron’s blood still running warm between her fingers and everything she had ever known falling around her because of her fault and with nothing left to do to save something from her world, she accepted death with open arms. What was the point of living, if that world had nothing left for her except, maybe, more destruction?

So she closed her eyes and started to fall down with her world.

Until she wasn’t.

That, _he_ had safed her life.

When she noticed that her fall had stopped and that instead of going down she was actually rising, she looked above her to meet the eyes of the Vision who, even without being a human himself, appeared to have the most human looked she had ever encounter. Wanda was confused, not understanding what could have motived him to save a practical extranger, and it would remain that way for a long time.

_“I just wanted to help you,” he would respond years later, when she finally brought herself to ask him. “I saw you there and you seemed so lost and... alone, and I just wasn’t able to leave you.”_

For a couple of seconds, she considered to fight so that he would let her go and she could find some peace at last, but staring at him, she soon understood that she wasn’t going to do it. And so she stood still and clunged tightly to his body while she watched her world being destroyed once again, sealing their fate without knowing it.

 

* * *

 

The days after Sokovia's destruction passed in front of her like if they were some sort of dream. They were blurry, as if they were happening to someone else or as if they were distant memories, permanently covered by a thick fog, a mechanism her own body seemed to have activated to function as a pain killer so she could survive after so much loss in such an small amount of time.

Pietro's funeral went on without anyone paying much of attention to it, since only she had the right to mourn him and she was too disturbed to do it.

She found out that the archer, Clint, had named his newborn son after Pietro, and even if she was genuinely thankful for that small but significant detail, she also felt bad for the man. It was him for whom his brother gave his life and since he was a good person, Wanda knew that he was probably feeling guilty for that. She wasn’t mad at him, not really. Clint had been good with her, patient and almost fatherly, and Pietro had been a grown up capable of taking his own decisions. He went in a noble way and at least that gave her some comfort, but she knew thay nothing she said would serve of much. Only time could heal some wounds, she knew this better than most.

After the funeral, her stay in Europe was short and she soon found herself traveling to America.

Wanda had oficially became an Avenger, and with the title came some responsabilities. The training sessions with Steve were hard but those with Natasha were almost unbearable. She was a merciless teacher in and out of the training field, but the more tired she was the less she could think so she was ok with it. Between murmurs and anecdotes, she became aware of the stories behind every member of her new team, and so it became easier to understand why they were the way they were. Their personalities, their moral codes and even the little customs they had like how Nat always seemed on high alert or how Stark kept trying to make amends with everyone, everything began to make sense. It was difficult for her to open herself to them, but she soon understood that they were good people. Ever since the moment she arrived, everyone kept trying to make her feel at home and for this she was thankful. For them, she was just a kid who had lost way too much for her age.

And they understood her, in some way, for everyone in there had lost something.

It was because of this that night terrors weren't an uncommon thing among them. She soon understood that, even if during the day she was able to sweat away her pain, nothing could protect her from her dreams. Being an orphan during a war, nightmares haven't been that uncommon while growing up, but then Pietro had been there for her. Now he was just another part of her nightmares, and she would wake up to her own screams instead of to a hug or some reassuring words. At first, they tried to hekp her, knocking on her door at night or trying to talk to her the next morning, but soon their efforts stoped, for everyone there knew that sometimes, the best thing to do was to stay out. Neither would someone come to her the next morning asking why it sounded like everything in her room was being thrown towards the walls or what was the scarlet light shining under her door. And, for that, she was thankful.

Vision was… different.

He didn’t pitied her -or anybody else-, he was just really curious about everything. He, just like her, was new in the team and in that culture. Then again, he was new in pretty much everything. He was clean, without any demons to hunt him. If she ever held any doubts about his humanity, the time spent with him was more than enough to eliminate them. He was, in fact, more human than most of the humans Wanda had knew during her lifetime. Everything was new to him, and so he saw wonder everywhere, as if existence itself had a magic that everyone except for him had forgotten. Yet she never found any feeling of malice inside of him, not even when the jokes the others made went to far. He became confused, of course, and Wanda even catched a glimpse of sadness a few times, but never anger, never _hate_ , and she could only admire him for that.

For her, it was pretty easy to notice this things since, for whatever reason, the android was constantly at her side. It was almost as if he was eager to help her, as if when he saved his life he had inmediately gotten a need for keeping her in the best possible state. In the beggining she had been suspicious of him, she was still hurting and she sure as hell wasn’t ready to befriend of the last remaining of Ultron's existence, but it ended up being inevitable for her to fall for him

Vision was, after all, quite charming.

Each day that they passed together, she allowed himself to get closer and closer to her and, with enough time, it became her the one searching for more time with him. At first it was mostly because of concern. She didn’t really knew what to expect from him and she constantly found herself searching inside of the other's head for some trace of Ultron, but each time she only found Vision in there; His innocence and curiosity and light.

A friendship with him offered peace, a safe space, and she was not in a position were she could deny something like that. She had problems, she knew it, and if the chaos in her head hadn’t claimed the life of someone it was just because she did not allow it. For Wanda Maximoff was many things, but she refused to be a monster. She knew that her powers weren’t meant to be in the hands of someone that unstable, she had seen what they were capable of whenever she lost control and therefore she knew she couldn’t afford to loose it. In one way or another, she would have to learn to deal with it, and it was obvious that Vision wanted to help her in any way she could, so she accepted her company.

Over time, apprehension gave way to curiosity, and curiosity to a peculiar friendship. Together they shared their doubts, they learned more about that world and their new lives. She offered him a natural and human treatment; He, a friendship without prejudices. When he had any doubt about human behavior, or when he broke some social rule without knowing it, it was she who explained it to him; When she isolated herself and began to sink into her memories, he was the one who approached her with a new movie to see or a book to talk about. She taught him the magic of music through her own guitar; He taught her to fly. She defended him when some joke reached far; He made sure that he ate and slept properly, because only he, with his constant observation, had noticed the dark circles under her eyes and her abnormal thinness. It was the both of them against a new world, and that was all they needed.

It was him who finally entered the lion's den one night when Wanda's cries were particularly horrible, and it was she who, in tears, explained to him that it was not particularly well-liked to enter someone else’s room by phasing through a wall.

"Oh," he said, genuinely confused by the curious rules of human privacy. "Why?"

It was raining that night, so the only thing that could be heard while watching him from his bed were the drops crashing against her window. There was no moonlight, but the scarlet glittering in her hands illuminated the room just enough for the disaster around her to be visible. Without being asked, Vision went deeper into the bedroom and started to put everything in its place.

"Because..." Wanda weighed her options. She was about to ask him to leave, to leave her alone to deal with her demons. She knew that if she did, he would not refuse, she knew this just as well as she knew how little he would like that. "Because a closed door means that someone needs privacy, and people don’t like it when you don’t respect that, so when a door is closed, it's better to knock to make sure you're welcome"

"Am I welcome?" He asked. At that moment, he stopped his actions and turned around to see her. He would respect whatever her response might be. They both remained silent for a few seconds, just looking at each other, lit by the light coming from Wanda's hands.

"Yes, Vis," she ended up answering, her mouth curving slightly upwards while she cleaned her tears away. "You're welcome."

 

* * *

 

 

The days she spent with the Avengers were a breath of fresh air, a point in her life where she once again dared to believe that maybe, just maybe, she could be happy. Maybe, after all, it wasn’t all lost for her.

When Sokovia became a scar and she was again able to think of Pietro without feeling the deepest of sorrows, she believed that at last she could see the light at the end of the road. Although she soon understood that no one was the same person after going trhrough hell and back, she told herself that this only meant that she now had the opportunity to be more than she was before. Better.

Sometimes, the memories of that life seemed so far away that it was almost as if they had happened to someone else... But the pain that squeezed her young heart when she gave it more thought than the necesary reminded her that it had been very much a real thing. And it was hard to live with it. But Wanda wasn’t by far the only one who had suffered in that place and to see how all those people had turn their pain into a hope for humanity inspired her to do the same. Pietro would have done it.

So she was strong and she held on. She clung to the hope of being someone better, of being able to use the experiences gained in her painful past to finally be able to make the change for which she had fought so much alongside her brother when they were still only two young orphans in a war-desolated country. The missions were difficult, and dealing with her powers when no one really knew how to train her in their use was constant torture for her and pretty much everyone else, but most of the time the satisfaction that life gave her was enough to make her reach the conclusion that it was worth it. Over time, she came to think that maybe she had been born for that. All the hate and helplessness that had overwhelmed her over the last few years seemed to be finally fading now that she could make a difference, now that her powers were finally doing something for the greater good. The weight of her past became easier to cope at having such an amazing present and such an apparently bright future.

Also, she had Vision.

After that first night in which he was allowed to stay to watch over her, it became a custom of him to go to her room every time he heard something abnormal coming from inside. He learned to knock on the door (and he remembered to do it most of the time) and to keep his distance, and she learned to lower her guard when being with him. _She learned to trust him._

If previously it had been usual to see them together, now it was almost a law that where one was, the other would be close. Even when things improved and Wanda's health stopped being cause for concern, Vision never stopped frequenting her. This because, quite similar to what happened to her the first time she met the android, for him, that woman was a source of wonder. He knew that he was not human, and although he was honored to live among them, he had never intended to be one. He was a machine, a highly advanced one, yes, but a machine after all, and this he knew. Even though he could understand feelings and why they were such an important part of the human experience, he never thought he could be capable of experiencing them. So when he realized that this assumption was not entirely true, he could not help but feel a little moved.

He knew the stories behind each of his fellow Avengers, so he knew perfectly well that everyone was, in their own way, good people, and not once he thought it was anyone's intention to make him feel bad, but it took a while for all of them to found an adequate way to treat him and while this was happening, Vision could not help but notice the doubts they had regarding him. And this made him feel... strange, something he would later identify as pain thanks to Wanda. Despite having a superior intelligence, he was quite young, so over the following months he had many "first times", all of them accompanied by new feelings. The first time he saw a sunrise in all its splendor, he was amazed; passing time with the rest of the team would usually make him experience joy; The first time he witnessed a failed mission, he knew what frustration was. Each and every time, it was Wanda who took some of her own time to explain him what he was feeling.

And it was Wanda who, as time went on, presented him the most overwhelming of emotions: Love.

Wanda always treated him... _Normal,_ as if ignoring the fact that the one she called friend was far from human. She was reserved by nature, of course, but he knew that it was that way with everyone, not specifically with him. She allowed him to help her when many in her place would have feared or distrusted him, and although for a time she did entered his head to be sure that everything was in order, in the end even that stopped at some point. When Vision noticed this, he had to fight with himself to ignore the twist his stomach gave.

He also had to ignore other things, like the mess he felt inside him everytime he saw her enter the room or the way his whole interior seemed to contort whenever she fell asleep on him shoulder watching a movie or reading a book. When he heard her laugh and he could not contain a smile or when he observed the way his eyes shone in the sunlight and he couldn’t find another word to describe her besides beautiful, all this he tried to ignore as long as it was possible for him, because for once he didn't needed her to identify what feeling caused those symptoms. He knew the answer, and it terrified him.

For someone who supposedly shouldn’t have feelings, he was feeling quite a lot and it was weird and scary because he didn’t knew how to deal with that or even if it was a real experiencel. Were they genuine? Or was he just a machine pretending to be something it could never be? More importantly, if his feelings were reciprocated, what kind of relationship could he offer to Wanda? Seeing her well, seeing her happy had become kind of a personal mission, and he could not stand the idea of becoming a factor to destabilize her again. So he decided to stay silence, stick with his usual actitude, at least until his fears were totally ruled out.

So, although his inner self hurted because of the unfair situation in which they had put Wanda after the Lagos incident, he still made the most logical decision and obeyed Tony Stark’s orders, even if this meant betraying the precious confidence of the sokovian girl. For him, what they were doing was wrong. He knew it was wrong and he strongly disagree with the decisions Mr. Stark was making because, while it was true that Wanda had made a costly mistake (one that justified the fear civilians had to the fact that beings with such power as the Avengers could do whatever they wanted without being under any kind of jurisdiction), it was also true that to consider her a danger to the point of enclosing her was not only exaggerated, but cruel. She already felt bad enough with herself for what happened, the last thing she needed was a reinforcement of the idea that she was somehow dangerous.

Wanda was not dangerous, strong, yes, maybe even terrifying to those who didn’t knew her personally, but Vision knew she was not dangerous. Wanda Maximoff was someone wonderful and incapable of hurting an innocent person in purpose, and to think that those who had lived with her as long as he could even consider the idea of seeing her as a potential danger, filled him with an unpleasant feeling. But he said nothing, because even though he wanted to help her, he knew that for the moment it was safer for her to stay inside the Avengers facility.

In silent submission, he did the only thing that came to his mind to make her feel a little better: cooking. Although he had never tasted it, he knew that food could have excellent benefits in a human’s emotional state, either because of the taste of the dishes or the memories they brought, and since at that time he was willing to try anything that had the slightest chance of making the situation more bearable for his dear friend, he got down to work.

It wasn’t much of a surprise when, judging by Wanda's reaction, he realized that his little experiment did not quite taste as she had hoped. The smile that the hilarious situation caused her, however, made the time wasted totally worthwhile. At the end, he had managed to raise her spirit, and with that he was more than satisfied. But it was that same happiness that had given him so much joy what made more painful the gesture that occupied her face when, by being intercepted by him when she tried to get out, she understood what was happening.

It broke his heart having to be him the one that needed to explain her that for the time being she was being confined to that place not for her safety, but for the safety of others, because even though he knew very well that the beautiful woman in front of him would never hurt a person without a good reason , she wasn’t all sure about that. Vision knew that she considered herself a danger, and he hated himself for reinforcing that idea. But it was for her sake, and that made everything easier.

"And what do you want?" she asked after he told her that it was what Tony Stark wanted. And Vision, even with all of his knowledge, had to take a few seconds before being able to answer.

"To people to see you as I do.”

 

* * *

 

 

Vision was suffering with the current situation, Wanda knew it probably better than he did.

She could see it in his face and in the way he avoided harming any of those present, even though half of them were against him and his team. She had also seen his pain during their brief confrontation when she escaped, and maybe that was the reason why she couldn’t bring herself to be angry at him despite his betrayal.

She wasn’t surprised at all about how things had turned out, but she was still dissapointed.

The fateful moment in which her mistake took the lives of more than a dozen innocent people passed in slow motion to her, and it was then when she knew that with that slip she had spoiled her happiness once more. After a life full of loss and pain, she was surprised about how genuinely she had believed that this time things could be different. What she didn’t expect was that, alongside with her happiness, she would take away the Avengers’ stability.

 _"You will tear them apart from the inside."_ Ultron had said to her, and she could only laugh at how right he had been.

She knew that Lagos and the consequent Accords had only been the beginning of their rupture, and that the straw that broke the camel's back were the problems with the Winter Soldier, but she could not help but wonder how things could have been without her mistake.

She was young and Sokovia hadn’t been exactly a symbol of peace, but she remembered an easier, more secure world, where the gods were still something that existed only in legends and there was no lethal danger threatening humanity every two weeks. That world no longer existed, it had been replaced by an Earth in constant danger ... And now she had tied the hands of their only protectors.

But they say that every mistake has it’s lesson, and she had learned that fearing her own power would bring nothing but suffering to her and those she holds dear. She was a walking storm, she was chaos, and it had come the time for her to accept that irrefutable fact. People were going to fear her no matter what she did, and although that filled her with sadness, she knew that the best she could do was to keep her own insecurities at bay in order to avoid more deadly mistakes.

But what was done was done, and now it was too late for anyone to back off. She, at least, was not going to be the one to step forward and apologize. A part of her had hoped that Vision understood her motives, she even came to believe, for a few seconds, that she could convince him to leave with her and Clint... Instead, the android had told her what she already knew.

 _"If you do this, they will never stop fearing you"_ and she saw so much concern and pain in him when saying this, that she only felt worse when she had to overpowered him in order to escape. She expected the anger and resentment to appeared at some point, as they always did, but they never came. Even when they came face to face in the airport and they were about to fight, she couldn’t found the familiar burn of those feelings inside her.

If anything, she was sad.

For the truth was that her friendship with the android had gone much further than she would have thought possible at first and, at some point that was still unclear in her head, her feelings towards him grew to become something more than the love he felt for his other colleagues.

The Avengers had become a new family for her, and although each of them was important for her in a unique way, what she felt for Vision was different.

At the beginning it was easy to ignore it; still too busy dealing with everything that had been going on in her life, she didn’t spend that much time thinking about it and instead she simply reduced it as a special affection produced by everything he had done for her. Later things got more complicated when she got better and noticed that those feelings continued to grow, along with other details that had previously seemed insignificant but that now alarmed her, like how he was always the first one she looked for when a fight got ugly or the way her body seemed to involuntarily search for his when they sat down to watch a movie. The situation became totally untenable when she noticed that _she wasn’t the only one feeling this way._

Thanks to her own feelings, she started to pay more attention to Vision and it didn’t took much for her to wonder how it had taken her so long to notice how he acted when he was with her, the adoration in his gaze when their eyes met for accident. She knew that he would never say anything about it if he could avoid it, but she sure as hell wouldn’t stay quiet for much longer because, unlike him, Wanda didn’t had that much conflict with the situation.

But then Lagos passed and everything fell apart.

When Clint arrived for her and, as he well knew how to do, gave her the courage to do what needed to be done, she kept holding on to the hope that Vision would reconsider things, she kept it until the very end. She really wanted him to understand, she wanted him to trust her just as she had trusted him, to be loyal to his feelings and to her ... Instead, he attacked Clint and tried to stop her. He made his decision, she had to take hers. When she was forced to use her powers to defeat him so she could flee, she thought she had lost him forever. A civil war had begun between the most powerful heroes on the planet and they were on opposite sides.

So it was a surprise to see him descending from the sky in the middle of the battle to help her, a very pleasant one, if she was being honest. When he knelt by her side and took her into his arms, her soul was filled with a deep tranquility to see that he wasn’t angry with her either, despite what had happened before. On the contrary, he held her as carefully as ever, and when he spoke, the only thing she could identify in his voice was a deep sorrow.

"I'm sorry." he said, and Wanda didn’t doubt for a second that he meant it.

"Me too." She was so focused was on him, that she barely noticed when he turned his head to shoot Sam.

She supposed that everyone paying attention to them felt as confused as she when his blast hit Rhodey, who was in fact supposed to be supported by that same attack. For a couple of seconds she thought he had done it on purpose, that he had switched sides at the last moment and that was why his attack had been directed at War Machine, since how it was possible that he, always so perfect and in order, had comitted such a mistake otherwise? But something felt _wrong_ about that theory, and she soon understood what was it: Had that been the case, he would have simply avoided firing. He would have never sent a companion to a possibly deadly fall. Seeing Vision's horror face, she realized tht the attack was, in fact, an accident.

And for the first time, Wanda Maximoff saw a bit of her own chaos in the perfect android.

"I got distracted," he would answer later when questioned by Tony Stark, both in front of Rhodey's damaged body. He felt horrible for what he had done, and he wished with all of his heart that his friend would get well. The man laughed, unable to believe what he was hearing, as if he thought his own creation was cruely mocking him.

"I didn’t think that was possible." And Vision felt fear at hearing those words, because only he knew that this distraction was a confirmation of his most bizarre fears. That accident was the perfect example of why he was so afraid of confronting his feelings.

"Me neither."

 

* * *

 

 

Nights on Edinburgh at that time of the year were cold, but the woman accepted the weather with pleasure. It brought back kind memories of her younger years, when Father sat her and Pietro in front of the heater to tell them stories of ancient times while her home was flooded with the smell of the hot chocolate Mother would be cooking in the kitchen. If she closed her eyes and tried hard enough, she could relive those memories and see them in her mind as if they were a movie.

"Are you okay?" Asked a voice at her side, and Wanda opened her eyes to see the second reason why she would accept that and any other weather without complaint, as long as it allowed them to be together.

"Yes," she replied, her voice totally at peace as she seeked for her usual place in his arms. Knowing what she was looking for, the android raised an arm to allow her to clung to his body and then he laid it down behind her back, so that he could wrapped it around her tiny frame. He knew that the cold was not exactly annoying to her, and that the blankets covering them kept her at a comfortable temperature anyway, but he still began to radiate an artificial heat quite similar to that a normal human would emit. "I was just remembering."

"Pleasant memories, I hope?" The nightmares had become quite rare, but it was never enough caution for him when it came to Wanda. After all, he was always trying to keep her as happy as possible.

"From my family" she answered, and although sometimes that subject could be painful for her, the peaceful smile with which she said it was enough to know that this was not one of those occasions, which calmed him down. A soft sigh came out of the mouth of the woman, who hugged the other with infinite tenderness as he rested his cheek on the top of her head, both in an comfortable silence that was interrupted only by the distant sound of the drizzle occurring outside their home.

_Home._

What a strange word was that for those two who, separately, had once assumed that they would never be able to make it theirs.

For Wanda, who had already been robbed of her home several times, her breaking point had been in solitary, locked in a cell with a straitjacket and an electric collar that restricted her movement to the point where the only thing she could do was think. During the time she spent in there, that's what she did. She thought about her family and Sokovia, how it used to looked so beautiful and calm at night when the snow covered it’s streets and you could almost ignore the tragedies happening daily in there. In Pietro, and how ironic that it was that the last time she had been locked in a room like that, he had been by her side. In Clint, Steve, Nat and the rest of the Avengers, even in Stark, with whom she had always had a complicated relationship, and in the days she spent with them. In Vision, and what could have been had things happened differently. She thought about all that and how, in the end, everything she loved was taken away from her sooner or later, and she concluded that maybe the best thing to do was simply surrendering. Fate didn’t seemed to have planned to give her any lasting happiness, so she might as well stop trying.

Vision, on the other hand, felt the same stifling sense of loneliness far away from her, safe where it was supposed to be his home. And for a while, it really had been. But war, however small, always changes things, it breaks them and by the time it’s over it’s almost impossible to leave them as they were before the disaster. The Sokovia Accords had taken the irreplaceable hope given by Captain Rogers, the sharp tongue of Natasha, the quarrels of jokes between Sam and Rhodey and the smile of Mr. Stark. But above all, the Agreements Wanda.

And only overwhelmed by the absence of her laughter, Vision realized that Wanda was his home.

It was this terrible certainty that led him to look for her when he learned of her escape, even if a part of him knew of the huge possibility of him having done irreversable damage by letting them take her to that horrible place. But the fear of rejection was a small price to pay if he had the chance to see her again.

It took time, but when he finally found her, he knew it had been worth it. He looked like a human and she looked slightly malnourished and her once dark hair had now a coppery hue, but as they exchanged glances, they both recognized each other immediately. Wanda could have recognize that stare under in any disguise. Since her escape, she had decided that this time she would so be getting mad at Vision, even if he probably wouldn’t care that much anyway (because after he allowed them to treat her like some kind of animal, she wasn’t very sure of that), and even if her courage at him didn’t dissapeared when she saw him smiling at her with so much joy, she knew from that moment that one day she would be able to forgive him.

"And you?" She asked, pulling him out of his thoughts. "Are you okay?" Gently, she reached out and stroked the cheek of the blonde who was returning her gaze. Almost two years after seeing him in that disguise for the first time, his human form was almost as familiar as his original magenta.

"Yes." and although the memories of the days that he passed away from her were still disturbing somehow, it was not a lie. After all, how could he feel anything but hapiness, being there with her? When he accepted his feelings while being appart from Wanda, he had thought that if they could manage to get together again, everything would be fine.

They made it, and so far, that logic hadn't failed.

Then Vision let out a noise of mortified complain when, out of nowhere, he was whipped by a sharp pain coming from the center of his forehead. Confusion invaded him and for a moment he was overwhelmed by a slight panic because he had not once felt anything like that and he feared what it might mean.

"Vis?" Wanda inquired with concern when the man rose from the bed with a hand on his forehead and his face contracted with pain. Without any delay, she got out of bed and went to the help of her partner, whom she reached up with her arm so at least he would know she was there. "What is it?"

"The gem," he answered, apparently a little more calm but still notoriously disturbed. The pain had ended as suddenly as it had arrived, but the restlessness was still there. The android allowed the small yellow rock to appear on his forehead, and while there seemed to be nothing abnormal about it, Wanda didn't dared to think the other was just over reacting.

"May I?" She asked, raising his hands a little and tentatively directing them to the forehead of the other. He nodded silently and without another word, the powerful woman proceeded to use her powers to enter the gem. Her relief was notorious when she confirmed on her own account that nothing unusual seemed to be happening to her loved one, but with this relief her confusion increased. "I... I just feel you."

Remembering the horrible sensation that had attacked him only a few seconds ago, Vision could not help but feel slightly worried, knowing that it was not normal, and the fact that none of them seemed to be able to find a reasonable explanation just made things worse. But looking at Wanda and seeing the beautiful face of his beloved being overwhelmed by the fear of losing someone else was enough for him to bury that concern.

"It was surely just a headache" he said, trying to play down the issue. Wanda smiled at this. For although they both knew that it was impossible for Vision to feel any kind of migraine, they were willing to believe anything that would allow them to continue enjoying the night. Their time was stolen after all, and it would not be long before Vision had to return to the Avengers, that if they wanted to keep suspicions low.

So, the redhead placed a kiss on the android's lips and soon found herself wrapped in his arms.

With a smile on their faces, they both settled back into the warmth of the blankets, huddled against each other, and allowed themselves to be happy. In the hearts of both of them there is the sad certainty that their future is uncertain, and that the hidden paradise they had formed based on lies and stolen moments will one day have to end in one way or another. They know this, but neither of them suspects that only a couple months from that moment, Vision will say "I love you" for the first and last time nor that Wanda will have to make one last sacrifice, killing him in order to save everyone else. They don't know this will fail and that their fight will have been for nothing.

But nothing of that matters because at this precise moment, the present, they are together and safe under the warmth of a small room in Edinburgh. Vision lays a gentle kiss in Wanda's lips and, in return, she looks at him with infinite tenderness, and everything’s okay because they have each other and nothing could ever change that. Neither of them speaks, but they're both thinking about the other and how lucky they are for having such an amazing partner and how much they love each other and how imperfect they are and how that is what makes them so perfect.

Vision remembers what he said to Ultron so long ago, about how odd it was for humans to believe that somehow, chaos and order were opposites, and he can't help but to laugh a little because even with all of his knowledge, even him once believed that he could have one without facing the other. Staring at Wanda, he now understands how that's impossible, and he knows she had come to understand this, too. They both have order and chaos within themselves, and acepting this takes a huge burden off their shoulders.

And they both smile, because they love each other and they still believe that that love will be enough to get them through whatever fate has in store for them.

**Author's Note:**

> Omg it's finally done.  
> This was made for Alissha! Sorry if this is not as good as it should be, I must confess that it had been a long time since I written a fanfic, let alone one as long as this one, but I tried my best.  
> I hope you liked it at least a bit.


End file.
